Read More

The other company was called Austin Leigh Ltd, of The Grange in Virginia Water. It was created on March 27, 2013, and its last investment was on May 30, 2014.

Oorloff was listed as the sole director.

“I was the admin boy at Acquire Assets," said Oorloff. "I stuffed envelopes and put stamps on the envelopes. I never understood the business or what it was.

"But, as far as I knew, it was legitimate.”

Under cross-examination by second prosecuting counsel Benjamin Holt, Oorloff said he only later discovered brokers were mis-selling.

“I didn’t know that at the time,” he said.

Mr Holt suggested it was strange Oorloff was being paid up to £51,000 annually purely for an office administrative role.

He said: “You were Mr Dickinson’s right hand man. He trusted you to run the company.”

Oorloff said: “He trusted me to do what I was doing.”

But Mr Holt quoted an email from Dickinson to Oorloff which said: “You kill me, my brother. What a little empire we have built together!”

Mr Holt said: “That says ‘WE,’ – not what an empire I have built, while you were stuffing envelopes.”

As far as the operation of Austin Leigh Ltd was concerned, Oorloff said he relied on Dickinson’s guidance.

Mr Holt said: “That’s a bit of a theme, isn’t it? – nothing to do with you.”

He said the truth of the matter was that Oorloff was involved with Dickinson in operating a “sham industry that was ripping people off.”

Oorloff replied: “That’s not true.”

'Sham investments'

When he was asked by the prosecution about newspaper reports that rare earth metals were a risky investment, he replied that Dickinson had “reassured” him that it was a sound business model.

“I trusted what John said. He set my mind at rest,” said Oorloff.

Asked why he had fled when police arrived at his home, Oorloff said he had bought some “weed" from someone locally and had assumed the visit was about that.

Earlier Dickinson, in his defence evidence, blamed brokers for mis-selling and said he had not realised that at the time.

Lead prosecution counsel Jonathan Polnay had told jurors: “The metals these defendants sold were, in effect, worthless, because in the form they were in – 1kg blocks – there is no one who would want to buy them.”

He held up a specimen block of one of the metals for jurors to see, telling them: “All this is good for is a doorstop.

Mr Polnay added: “The whole thing was a great big con. These defendants were conning people out of their money: two million pounds of it.

“The fraud, under the Companies Act, involves the selling of sham investments. The only thing that was guaranteed about what the defendants were up to is that you would lose money.”

The earth metals featured in the case include scandium, yttrium and neodymium.

Mr Polnay said: “The defendants sub-contracted the actual selling of the metals to a number of equally dishonest companies that are known as ‘boiler rooms’.”

He added that the name boiler-room is given to any firm that uses high-pressure and sophisticated techniques to sell “worthless investments.”

Mr Polnay said these cold-callers were paid commissions ranging from 50 per cent to 74 per cent for each sale made.

“This meant that for every £100 that a client thought he was investing, £50 to £74 would go to the salesman. Obviously and contrary to all fair, reasonable and honest behaviour, this was kept secret from the consumer,” he said.

“If a person found out, they would know immediately that the whole enterprise was dodgy,” explained Mr Polnay.

He said, on average, the defendants would use only £19 out of every £100 paid over by investors to buy the metals.

“£19 of metal was sold for £100. This means that the price of the metal would have to go up by 582% before you actually broke even. Of course, that’s assuming you could sell it, which, as I’ve explained already, you can’t,” added the prosecuting counsel.

“As both these defendants know, if that’s not fraud, what is?” said the prosecuting counsel.

'Organ grinders'

He said Dickinson was arrested on August 21, 2014, at his Loxwood home, by police armed with a search warrant. His mobile phone was seized.

When police swooped on Oorloff’s Ascot address on the same day, Oorloff fled from his property and was found hiding in some nearby woods.

He had also been trying to call Mr Dickinson texting: “Go to the office. My house has been raided,” the court heard.

Mr Polnay said: ”All rather odd behaviour for a legitimate businessman. If it was all legal, why did he think the police visit was anything to do with Mr Dickinson at all?”

Mr Polnay said those involved in the "boiler-room" firms were not in the dock.

“Police resources are not unlimited. It was decided to concentrate on investigating, charging and prosecuting the organ-grinders rather than the monkeys,” added Mr Polnay.